Beware of fire incidents

Every year, a number of fire incidents take place in Bangladesh. The main reason behind this alarming rise of fire accidents is our lack of awareness, which costs lives of innocent people. We have recently witnessed several deadly fire incidents in the country. A few days ago, a person lost his life in a fire in the capital's Mohakhali Khawaja Tower. There are irregularities and lax monitoring in high-rise buildings, which cause accidental fires. Many high-rise shopping malls, factories and buildings have been built but they lack emergency fire exits, extinguishers, insurance coverage and security management. Despite having RAJUK (Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha) approval, many buildings do not have spaces that can allow fire service vehicles and extinguishing instruments to enter there easily. The authorities concerned hardly monitor the fire safety requirements that all buildings should follow. Along with carelessness, faulty electrical connections are reportedly responsible for most fire accidents in Dhaka city. Fire accidents also happen due to exploding gas cylinders. Sometimes fire starts from burning mosquito-coil or cigarette and can burn down an entire slum.

There is no substitute for awareness and caution in preventing fire accidents. If there is a fire somewhere, the fire service department should be informed very quickly by calling its hotline number, which is 16163. We use water to put out fire. But water cannot be used if the fire starts from electrical wires or connections; rather, we should turn off the main switch as soon as possible. To reduce loss of life and property in case of a fire incident, separate stairs should be provided for emergency fire exit in the buildings and necessary fire extinguishers should be kept on each floor.

Md Sefatullah Tasnim,

Student of University of Dhaka, Dhaka,

mdsefattasnim69@gmail.com